


you outgrew the sum of your parts

by XellyChan



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Fic Exchange, Found Family, Gen, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 10:28:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21251888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XellyChan/pseuds/XellyChan
Summary: "You don't want to be alone.""Does anyone?"





	you outgrew the sum of your parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PickleandtheQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PickleandtheQueen/gifts).

> for the halloween gift exchange on the dbz writer's discord.
> 
> sorry, sorry, i set out to write something spooky, but instead wrote something soft and strange. more Dia de Los Muertos than halloweeny, tbh. Sorry, the ending kinda petered off there, tho. Hope you like it!

ChiChi's mouth quirks into something hard and not quite a smile, her shoulders pulled back and proud. "It's tough work, y'know. Waitin' and holding down the family," she tells Piccolo, flour dusting her cheekbone and fragrant sweat dampening the nap of her neck. "I reckon you don't know nothing about that, eh?"

Piccolo shakes his head, chagrined. 

She dusts her hands on her apron skirt then places them on her sturdy hips. "Well. That's alright. You can learn and we can work on waiting together."

His gaze slides off to the side, to the back of that lonely little boy sitting on the hill outside the window. A weight builds in his chest, and Piccolo can't tell who the feeling belongs to; if it's really his own. He's three people but without the threat of the world hanging over them all, he feels nameless once again. Where does he as a singular being begin and where does the emotions and thoughts of three strangers end? How can he tell if he isn't feeling their nostalgia, their wistfulness, their lingering thoughts of those they've left behind? Nail and Kami sigh in his mind, fondly, a little sadly, then fade away altogether. The heaviness in his chest doesn't abate, though, just settles deeper, closer to his ribcage the longer he looks at Gohan's slumped shoulders. 

"You won't want me here."

ChiChi crinkles her nose. "I think I can decide just fine what I want and what I don't, mister."

He frowns, crossing his arms and staring hard at Gohan's back, feeling something buried and bruised unearth itself in his lungs the longer he watches.

The silence ticks over between them for a long, stiff-backed moment before ChiChi snorts uncharitably. "Maybe it's  _ you _ who don't know what you want," Her hip cocks out, her own arms crossing, the movement graceful with subtle strength Piccolo can't help but turn his attention to. He's never forgotten she was a fighter once, too. His eyes track the coil muscles in her biceps, visible despite the loose cloth of her sleeves, sensing the understated power there. "You've got nowhere to go and you love them both, doncha, just as much as I do. So stay."

There's a fire in her eyes, steel in her voice, but he can hear the soft, bruised stutter of her heartbeat when she mentions Goku and Gohan. Piccolo recoils, and instinctive snarl curling his lips away from his fangs before the pain catches up and he blanches, deflates. He draws in a breath. "You don't want to be alone," he says, but it feels like a question. It feels like he's fishing for an excuse.

"Does anyone?" She shakes her head and smiles that same, hard not-smile when he opens his mouth to argue. "You wouldn't go into a fight alone. So why go through heartbreak alone?"

***

It's not heartbreak, he'd never had enough for it to be broken in the first place. 

Maybe it's his heart coming together. Somehow that's more frightening.

He can handle broken bodies, broken wills, broken minds, broken spirits. He's sutured and welded himself together since before he was born, missing half of himself, missing his name. 

When his father gave birth to him, whatever gaping, missing space inside him was sealed over with hate and an inherited vendetta. How could he have known that there was anything more than that when his father was half of a whole and he was just a copy? Someone else's dying wish?

But then Gohan.

But then Namek.

But then Nail.

Left raw by life and death and a home he never knew, the next three years in these mountains, embedded itself in the soft soil of new, unfamiliar feelings. Training with his former enemy, living side by side with his former pupil. Eating, sleeping, fight, living together. Time moved fast and something began to sprout in those empty spaces, new and small, growing so slow he didn't notice it until he was standing before Kami, desperate to save everything and everyone. Then it snowballed from there, too fast to keep track of.

Kami. Becoming complete. Goku dying. Gohan, again, but this time incandescent and exploding in on himself like a star.

Bit by bit, Piccolo was coming together. The pieces slotting together, fitting perfectly, painfully.

***

"No one is telling you to shoulder this all on your own," ChiChi says, wrapping her arms around Gohan's shoulders, her distended belly making the hug awkward. 

"You're not setting the best example, either," Piccolo can't help but point out, flicking a claw at the pile of over full grocery bags that weren't there a few hours ago. He'd been in the waterfalls, trying to meditate but distracted by the restless sound of Gohan having another nightmare at his desk. "Going down the mountains, at your size?" It's easier to needle her than recognize the concern brewing in his ribcage.

ChiChi growls, her exertion flushed cheeks not softening her glare anyway. From between her arms, Gohan sighs around a weak laugh, rubbing the side of his neck. The habit is entirely his father's, and it stops Piccolo and ChiChi short, that faint echo of Goku in Gohan's mannerisms. "I'm okay, mom. Piccolo," Gohan says, voice soft and eyes sleepless. "I have you guys here with me."

"Oh Gohan," ChiChi says, shuffling around her round stomach until she can drop a kiss into his black hair, her strong hands squeezing his broadening shoulders. "We'll always be here."

Piccolo wants to leave, wants to let them be, feels awkward bearing witness to this small family's intimate moment. But Gohan reaches out and snags the corner of his cape, pulling him in. Keeping him there. "Mr. Piccolo," he says, very solemn, dark eyes wide and boyish still despite his fading baby fat. "Will you stay? I know you've kept close, but...will you  _ stay _ ?"

He looks helplessly up at ChiChi, finds dark, solemn eyes staring back at him. She smiles, crooked and softened by time, then deliberately looks away, pressing another kiss to Gohan's head. Piccolo grits his fangs, then wraps his surprisingly steady hands around Gohan's, pulling his fingers away from his cape. Gohan's fragile expression wavers, a slight flinch that slides into Piccolo like a knife.

He kneels, chagrined, green fingers slotting with ink-stained ones. "I'm already here, waiting for this new one to join the rest of the family," he says, pressing both their hands to ChiChi's taut stomach. Gohan gasps, his eyes filling with salt, but when Piccolo glances up at ChiChi, there's no smugness or surprise, just soft gratitude. 

Piccolo swallows hard. He still doesn't know what family is, or who he is, but he's learning, bit by bit.


End file.
